CHAPTER X
Now things were better. Life returned to Prokop day by day. He felt a dulness in his head and he was always a little as if in a dream. There was nothing to do but to shew his appreciation of the doctor’s services and go on his own way. He announced this decision one day after supper but everybody received it in stubborn silence. Then the old man took Prokop by the arm and led him into the consulting-room. After a certain amount of beating about the bush he said gruffly that Prokop must not leave, that it was better for him to rest, that the battle was not yet won—in short, that he was to remain. Prokop vaguely defended himself; the fact was that he did not yet feel himself in the saddle and that he was a little demoralized by comfort. All talk of going away was postponed indefinitely.
Every afternoon the doctor shut himself up in his consulting-room. “Come in and see me, eh?” he said to Prokop casually. And Prokop found him surrounded by all sorts of bottles, crucibles, and powders. “There’s no apothecary in the town, you know,” explained the doctor, “I have to prepare the medicines myself.” And with his fat, trembling fingers he laid some powder on the pan of the small balance. His hand was uncertain, the scales twisted and jumped about; the old gentleman became agitated, wheezed, and small drops of sweat appeared on his nose. “I can’t see as well as I used to,” he said, excusing his old fingers. Prokop watched for a moment and then, saying nothing, took the scales from him. Two little taps and the powder was weighed to a milligram. And a second and a third powder in the same way. The delicate balance simply danced in Prokop’s fingers. “Just look at that,” said the doctor with admiration and watched Prokop’s crushed, knotty hands with their shapeless knuckles, broken nails, and short stumps in the place of one or two missing fingers. “Your fingers are wonderfully nimble, man!” In the course of a few moments Prokop had spread some ointment, measured off some drops of liquid, and heated a test-tube. The doctor glowed with pleasure, and stuck on the labels. In half-an-hour all the medicines were ready, and, in addition, there was a pile of powders in reserve. In a few days Prokop could read the doctor’s prescriptions and make them up. Bon!
One evening the doctor was poking about in the garden in the loose soil. Suddenly there was a frightful report in the house, and a moment after the noise of falling glass. The doctor dashed indoors and in the passage ran into the terrified Annie. “What has happened?” he cried.
“I don’t know,” replied the girl. “In the consulting-room.” . . . The doctor ran there and found Prokop on all fours picking potsherds and pieces of paper off the floor.
“What have you been doing?” cried the doctor.
“Nothing,” said Prokop, and got up guiltily. “A test-tube burst.”
“And what, in God’s name, does this mean?” thundered the doctor, stopping suddenly; a stream of blood was pouring from Prokop’s left hand. “How did you tear your finger?”
“Only a scratch,” Prokop protested and hid his left hand behind his back.
“Show me,” cried the doctor and dragged him to the window. Half of one finger was hanging by the skin. The doctor rushed to the cupboard for his scissors and in the open door saw Annie, deathly pale. “What do you want?” he rapped out. “Be off, quick!” Annie did not move; she pressed her hands to her breast and looked as if she might swoon away any moment.
The doctor turned to Prokop. To begin with he did something with some wadding and then snapped the scissors. “Light,” he shouted to Annie. Annie dashed to the switch and turned it on. “And don’t stay here,” roared the old gentleman, dipping a needle into some benzine. “What can you do here? Some thread, quick!” Annie sprang to the cupboard and gave him a box full of thread. “And now away with you!”
Annie looked at Prokop’s back and did something else instead; she stepped closer, took the wounded hand and held it in both of hers. The doctor at the moment was washing his hands; he turned to Annie and was going to burst out with something but instead grunted: “All right, hold it firmly! And nearer the light!” Annie held the hand, her eyes blinking. When there was nothing to be heard but the doctor's heavy breathing she ventured to raise them. Below, where her father was working, all was bloody and revolting. She hastily glanced at Prokop; his face was turned away and twitched with pain. Annie shivered and swallowed her tears.
Meanwhile Prokop’s hand grew larger and larger; quantities of wadding, silk, and a good kilometre of bandages; finally an enormous white lump. Annie continued to hold the hand. Her knees shook; it seemed to her that this terrible operation would never be over. Suddenly her head began to swim and the next thing that she heard was her father saying: “Drink this quickly!” She opened her eyes and found that she was sitting in the armchair in the consulting-room and that her father was handing her a glassful of some stuff or other while Prokop was standing behind him, smiling and holding his bound hand, which looked like a huge doll, across his chest. “Drink it up,” repeated the doctor through his teeth. She swallowed the contents of the glass and nearly choked with coughing; it was murderously strong cognac.
“And now you,” said the doctor, and gave the glass to Prokop. Prokop was a trifle pale and valiantly awaited the scolding which was due to him. Finally the doctor himself drank, cleared his throat and said, “What exactly have you been doing?”
“An experiment,” said Prokop with the twisted smile of a guilty person.
“What? What experiment? Experiment with what?”
“Only billinghurst something with potassium chlorate.”
“What were you making?”
“An explosive,” whispered Prokop with the humiliation of a sinner.
The doctor’s eyes moved to his bandaged hand. “And you’ve paid for it, my friend! It might have torn your hand off, eh? Does it hurt? But it suits you,” he added bloodthirstily.
“But, father,” said Annie, “leave him alone now!”
“What’s that to do with you?” grunted the doctor and caressed her with a hand which smelt of carbolic and iodoform.
After that the doctor kept the key of the consulting-room in his pocket. Prokop ordered a parcel of scientific books, went about with his arm in a sling and spent the whole day in study. The cherries had already begun to blossom, the sticky young leaves were glistening in the sun, the golden lilies were putting out heavy buds. Annie went about the garden with a buxom girl friend, their arms round one another’s waists, laughing all the time. They put their red faces together, whispered something, burst out laughing and began to kiss one another.
At last Prokop felt bodily well again. Like an animal, he basked in the sun, blinking his eyes. Then he would sigh and sit down to work, but would at once feel an inclination to move about and wander far into the country, passionately giving himself up to the joy of breathing. Sometimes he would meet Annie about the house or in the garden and try to say something. Annie would look at him out of the corner of her eye and not know what to do. Prokop would be equally at a loss and coves,his embarrassment by speaking in a gruff voice. He felt better, or at least more sure of himself, when he was alone.
In the course of his studies he noticed that there was a great deal that he had missed. There were all sorts of new developments, and he was obliged to orientate himself again. Chiefly he was afraid of not being able to remember his own work, for it was in connection with this that his memory suffered most. He worked like a mule, or else gave himself up to dreaming. He dreamt of new laboratory methods, and at the same time he was fascinated by bold and delicate theoretical calculations. When his dull brain proved incapable of splitting the thin hair of a problem he would grow angry with himself. He was conscious of the fact that his laboratory “destructive chemistry” opened up the most marvellous vistas in the theory of the constitution of matter. He came up against unexpected correlations, immediately afterwards to be oppressed by the laboriousness of his methods. Disgusted, he would throw everything down and plunge into reading some stupid novel; but even here he was haunted by the atmosphere of the laboratory. Instead of words he read only chemical symbols, mad formule full of elements hitherto undiscovered, which disturbed him even in his sleep.